Join us for the 2023 Society for Science at User Research Facilities Annual Meeting! The event will be held in person, this year hosted at the Gaithersburg Marriott Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, MD, USA. Get ready for a day filled with engaging discussions, informative presentations, and networking opportunities. Whether you are a seasoned user or just starting your career, this meeting is an opportunity to connect with accomplished individuals across a spectrum of scientific research, as well as leadership, including user administrators, private sector technologists, federal agency officials, and other research stakeholders. As in the past, the SSURF Annual meeting provides critical updates and knowledge around user facilities and related areas of interest and the chance to develop valuable relationships with those across the user facility ecosystem.
Key session announcements:
Keynote: Ian Wilson, Ph.D. Chair, Hansen Professor of Structural Biology, Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research Institute
Lecture Title: “Antibody recognition of deadly human pathogens for structure-based vaccine and therapeutic design”
Dr. Wilson has a distinguished and accomplished record of ground-breaking research on infectious diseases, including influenza, COVID-19, HIV, and many others. Research contributions from the WilsonLab have been pivotal for many of the pioneering studies on immune recognition of microbial pathogens, antigen presentation and structure-based design of vaccine and therapies. Dr. Wilson will discuss the crucial role of user facilities and cross-agency collaborations to his team’s work.
Keynote: Branden Brough is the Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO). He will provide insight on the crucial research being conducted at hundreds of organizations across the country that advance science and technology at the nanoscale including user facilities, and the opportunities for further cooperation between these entities in an effort to maximize our Nation’s scientific innovation and commercialization goals.
Panel: Dr. Mamie Parker will moderate a panel on “DEI Programs in User Facilities”. She is a professional fish and wildlife biologist, success coach and principal consultant at Ecologix Group, Inc. Dr. Parker made history serving as the first African American U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director of the 13 Northeastern states and then as the FWS Chief of Staff, Assistant Director of Habitat Conservation/Head of Fisheries in this country. Known for her public speaking throughout the environmental community, Parker has given commencement addresses and speeches for several organizations. Five women along with Dr. Parker were featured in the Smithsonian Institute’s book “Women, Environmentalism and Justice.” The Coretta Scott King Award winner, Tonya Bolden released her latest book, “Changing the Equation, 50+ US Black Women in STEM, which celebrates Dr. Parker and others that have paved the way for future generations.
Natalie Holder is the Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer of the Stanford National Accelerator Lab (SLAC). She is a strategic architect of organizational cultural change management that has moved the diversity, equity and inclusion needle in high-profile work environments and she uses her employment law background to strategize the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) infrastructure for organizations. She will be on the panel discussing DEI programs in user facilities.
Kevin Fournier is the User Office Director for the National Ignition Facility, he will be speaking about the recent successful fusion achievements at NIF and the outlook for fusion research. He works closely with the High Energy Density (HED) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) councils, the Joint National Security Applications Council (JNSAC), the Technical Review Committee for Discovery Science, the NIF User Group, and other organizations and representatives to impact the successful execution of their program experiments on NIF.
Further announcements to come. Info and RSVP here: